tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post2731754680894937120..comments2018-01-31T17:37:37.978-08:00Comments on Overweening Generalist: Our Neurogenetic Archives: A Few Notesmichaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-24703798619462298972016-10-26T10:23:04.244-07:002016-10-26T10:23:04.244-07:00Thank you for recommending Ed Yong&#39;s new book....Thank you for recommending Ed Yong&#39;s new book. There are some 46 people on the waiting list ahead of me in my local library. WOW! It sounds like one of the hottest scientific fields. I guess, I am buying the book. Thanks again!hilary chasehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08635439407166387986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-30771263177778612942016-10-17T14:24:14.863-07:002016-10-17T14:24:14.863-07:00@Hilary Chase-
I like how you&#39;ve taken colloqu...@Hilary Chase-<br />I like how you&#39;ve taken colloquialisms about &quot;my gut tells me&quot; and link it to the recent avalanche of fantastic science about gut bacteria. Aye! Yea, verily: this stuff is fascinating. I&#39;ve written about it a tad here before, but am currently mired in the amazing research. <br /><br />A specific neural pathway from gut to brain has been described. Right now it seems doubtful that 905 of our thinking depends on gut bacteria, but even if it&#39;s &quot;only&quot; 10% I consider that world-shaking news.<br /><br />Further: gut bacteria seem to work in shifts, or their actions wax and wane throughout a day, but not necessarily with &quot;our&quot; schedule...the irony being that &quot;our&quot; implies that the bacteria are not &quot;us&quot;, which of course is wrong, and the whole point.<br /><br />There&#39;s been a lot written about probiotics, but we really don&#39;t know enough about how they work, if they work with some people and not others, etc. It&#39;s extremely complicated. <br /><br />Two researchers on this topic that seem well worthsomewhiling about: Rob Knight and Pieter Dorrenstein.<br /><br />There was an outlier doctor who wrote a book on the gut being a second &quot;brain&quot;...in the 1990s. I remember working at a library and a patron (who was really brainy) checked out the book Michael Gershon&#39;s book from 1999 about this Second Brain. I had shelved the book and briefly scanned it and thought it seemed borderline &quot;quackish&quot; because: really? my stomach and intestines are in league with my brain? It&#39;s just another example of how, even when we believe we&#39;re the most open-minded people around, we can ignorantly foreclose on some idea.<br /><br />Now I can&#39;t stop reading about gut bacteria...and OH YEA! Read Ed Yong&#39;s new book _I Contain Multitudes_! I just finished it, and it&#39;s enchanting.michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-48647079408026213372016-10-17T09:42:02.708-07:002016-10-17T09:42:02.708-07:00Based on what little I&#39;ve read on how gut bact...Based on what little I&#39;ve read on how gut bacteria can influence our thinking, I find this bacterial assemblage fascinating, and the more I read about it the more my head and my guts spin.<br /> <br />Okay, bacteria have lived inside humans for millions of years and for centuries people were saying: &quot;My gut tells me..........&quot; Or: &quot;I need to digest the information.&quot; As &quot;if&quot; the gut was thinking and talking to people. It sounds like people were aware of the connection between the brain and the gut before many scientific researchers? How so?<br /> <br />For me the question remains: to what degree does gut bacteria influence our thinking?<br /> <br />If 90% of our cells are actually bacterial and if bacterial genes outnumber human genes by a factor of 99 to 1, does that mean that about 90% of our thinking depends on the gut bacteria?<br /> <br />I guess, the advantage is: bacteria can be manipulated and many neurodevelopmental disorders can be treated and very likely be more precise than the current pharmacological approaches. I assume in the near future when we go to the doctor he or she will prescribe eating yogurt 2 X a day instead of taking Prozac.hilary chasehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08635439407166387986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-78780340051497465472016-10-12T13:15:50.894-07:002016-10-12T13:15:50.894-07:00@Hilary Chase-
Yea, Trivers has not advertised fo...@Hilary Chase-<br /><br />Yea, Trivers has not advertised for himself, but of all the 1970s minds in &quot;sociobiology&quot; he was the Einstein. Trivers put out a memoir last year and I still haven&#39;t read it. <br /><br />RAW didn&#39;t move to Santa Cruz until around 1990 or so. He spent 1982-86 in Ireland, then Los Angeles, trying to get his work made into a films, then eventually settled in Santa Cruz. Another UC Santa Cruz guy RAW was influenced by who was there at the same time: Norman O. Brown.<br /><br />RAW lived in Berkeley in the late 1970s.<br /><br />I didn&#39;t have time to fit Trivers into this blogspew, but you&#39;re right: that was germane: we seem to have all sorts of other &quot;selves&quot; our genes are driving. Trivers has written some gripping stuff on self-deception and why it may have evolved in his marvelous work _The Folly of Fools_.<br /><br />Your line about the core of our mental lives are contradictions is fascinating to me. Have you seen the latest stuff on how gut bacteria can influence our thinking? It just gets weirder from there on out.<br /><br />Finally: Trivers&#39;s career as the great sociobiological genius, coupled with his &quot;street talk,&quot; his take-no-bullshit from university administrative types, his very close ties to the Panthers, his constant pot smoking...he&#39;s my kinda intellectual. Apparently never quite as &quot;dangerous&quot; to tweedy academic jerks as Leary appeared in those same in the early 1960s. Progress?<br />michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-23698639894321706432016-10-12T10:01:46.994-07:002016-10-12T10:01:46.994-07:00Luckily I bumped into this wonderful article about...Luckily I bumped into this wonderful article about this wonderful character today:<br /><br />https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201601/trivers-pursuit<br /><br />Definitely cheered me up. It is ridiculous how much of my own thinking was influenced by his work before I ever heard of him.<br /><br />Robert Trivers made a mark with the 2006 textbook Genes in Conflict. According to Trivers, “We created an entire field, the evolutionary dynamics of within-individual genetic conflict.” It seems at the core of our mental lives is a contradiction and I wonder if we live by constant cognitive dissonance in the 4-D space/time continuum?<br /><br />Somehow I feel a wonderful synergy between genes in conflict and guerrilla ontology. Is it just me?<br /><br />According to this article Trivers lived in Santa Cruz and was teaching at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1977; in close proximity to Capitola where Robert Anton Wilson used to live. I am curious if Wilson lived there in the late 70’s?hilary chasehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08635439407166387986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-21706156375768761812016-10-10T01:10:20.451-07:002016-10-10T01:10:20.451-07:00I seem to remember a book...The Bell Curve Jar?
...I seem to remember a book...The Bell Curve Jar?<br /><br /> In which a woman can&#39;t hack coming to grips with her impoverished inheritance of intellect, so she sticks her head in an oven? <br /><br />Was that it? michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-74998217902805586912016-10-08T06:46:41.335-07:002016-10-08T06:46:41.335-07:00You can see &quot;inherited knowledge&quot; pretty...You can see &quot;inherited knowledge&quot; pretty plainly with animals. My Siamese cat likes to cover up his food (and empty food dish) with pieces of paper. This is not something he learned from his environment; neither I nor anyone else in the household ever steals his food, and he&#39;s fed at least three times a day, so it&#39;s not like he worries about where the next meal is coming from.<br /><br />When I read his, I was curious if you&#39;ve ever read &quot;The Bell Curve.&quot; Now there&#39;s a taboo book .... Cleveland Okie (Tom Jackson)https://www.blogger.com/profile/07810736442596736041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-22598153350892613952016-10-06T12:52:44.657-07:002016-10-06T12:52:44.657-07:00Interesting piece. It makes me wonder about the da...Interesting piece. It makes me wonder about the damage done unto us and our children by terrible bosses. I also wonder about the effects of listening to music. I have Wagner playing now, and I&#39;ve listened to a lot of Wagner this week, trying to understand the role of Wagner in Proust&#39;s fiction. I wonder about the effects to our genetics by reading fine poetry or listening to the Ramones.Eric Wagnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04312033917401203598noreply@blogger.com